Mr. Councillor Middlehurst, of Salford, finding a difficulty in understanding
Lord Derby's withdrawal from the Conservative Union of Lancashire, wrote to him to inquire whether that with- drawal were intended to dissolve his connection with the Con- servative party in general, and received a reply intimating that Lord Derby did not see the good of further explanation. He had, he said, openly and strongly expressed his dissent from the foreign policy of the Government. That policy had been, on the whole, accepted by the Conservative party, and had been expressly vindicated in the last report of the Associations from which he had retired. Of course, therefore, he could not consistently support in Lancashire a policy which he had opposed in the House of Lords, and " for the present, at least, he wished to hold himself free from all party organisations." That is, we think, a precise equivalent of the interpretation which we ven- tured to put on Lord Derby's announcement last week. He does not cease to be inclined to a cautious and Con- servative domestic policy, but he does wish to throw his weight into the scale against the ruinous foreign policy of the Government, even though the main weight in the same scale be the weight of Liberal conviction.
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